Amazon has made same-day delivery a benchmark on the planet. Impulse Space pitches a similar concept of satellites bound to Earth orbit about 22,000 miles on Earth, compressing transport, usually over several hours and months.
Over the course of a week, the In-Space Propulsion Startup announced a trio of trio intended to unlock Earth Layer Orbit (GEO) for commercial and defense users. This includes a demo mission with defense contractor Andrill, scheduled for 2026. Transportation agreement with Geo Communications Startup Astranis in 2027. And from the same year, a Multi-Lan contract was made to transport service satellites in infinite orbit to GEO.
Tom Mueller founded Impulse in 2021, after leading the propulsion at SpaceX for nearly 20 years, which is where he led the development of Merlin and Raptor engines. He left SpaceX in 2020 to build a spatial transport service focused on last mile delivery of low Earth orbit (LEO) (usually 100-1,200 miles on Earth), focusing on ultra-fast satellite transport to GEO.
The common denominator for these missions is Helios, the methane oxygen kick stage of the impulse. The kickstage is essentially a large rocket engine system, where you board a large rocket and then fire your own engine (a powerful engine called a Deneb) to propel the spacecraft to its final destination.
Helios is intended to be a “same day” courier service from Leo to high altitude orbit. Performing as advertised, commercial operators could reach orbit faster, and the Department of Defense could pilot them faster in increasingly contested space regions.
Geo is not far away. The satellites that reach there and operate from there present special challenges. Spacecraft must pass through a highly radiant Van Allenbert, a zone of charged particles trapped in the Earth's magnetic field. Long distance communication delays must be addressed and accurate positions must be maintained.
The Andrill-impulse partnership can prove particularly advantageous. The pair will jointly build demonstration satellites for rendezvous and proximity operations, the ability to allow spacecraft to approach and inspect other objects that they identify as important for awareness and deterrence in space domains.
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Impulse supplies a spacecraft called Mira, which first flew last year, but Anduril offers mission data processors, long wave infrared imagers, and other software-defined payloads aimed at tracking and advanced navigation.
As part of the demonstration, Helios will ferry the spacecraft to Geo within a day. The mission then aims to capture and analyze images of other resident space objects, and perform accurate operations autonomously to observe the objects.
US officials often describe their ability to reposition satellites in orbit without “steering without regrets” or risking missions or wasting expensive fuel.
Commercially, Astranis has signed a 2027 mission to be launched into Leo on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and delivered to Earth Stadium by Helios within 24 hours. This mission profile is extremely valuable to Astranis. This allows the company to dramatically accelerate the satellite activation dates for customers waiting for satellite broadband services on Earth.
Finally, Impulse signed multiple launch agreements with France's Infinite Orbit and was able to transport several satellite service spacecraft to GEO through a ride-sharing program called Caravan. Impulse said the Caravan offering will provide multiple small satellites simultaneously, with SpaceX's ride-sharing program, allowing businesses to split the costs of launches. The first caravan mission is fully booked for 2026, Impulse said.
In recent years, the explosive growth in the space industry has mostly focused on LEO as operators have moved to smaller, cheaper satellites due to communication and remote sensing applications. However, if you have an impulse, the next step in growth is in GEO.